THE AMERICAJS BEE JOURNAL. 



775 



will be eiisy to keep this separate. As 

 tills iieetar will keep the bees busy 

 gatherinjt in time of no nectar bloom. 

 It will keep the colonies breetling, and 

 as it will be good food for bees during 

 summer, it will do no serious mis- 

 chief to one who is informed as lo its 

 use and abuse. 



Lately, I have received several 

 samples of what has been styled 

 '• manna grass," by those sending it. 

 It comes from Ohio and ^lichigan. 

 The grass was speckled with chrys- 

 tals of sugar, much as though it had 

 been dipped in sugar syrup. Placed 

 ou the tongue, it seemed as if it might 

 have been sprinkled with granulated 

 sugar. The sweet was very pleasant 

 to the taste. 



Upon close examination, I found 

 that the grass was the seatol a thrifty 

 plantation of ergot. Many of the 

 seeds or kernels had the purple-black 

 ergot grains. 1 gave the ergot to Dr. 

 Grange, our veterinarian, and told 

 him of the coating of sugar, which 1 

 supposed must arise from insects, 

 though I could tind none of the latter. 



Soon after. Dr. Grange kindly re- 

 ferred me to a work on veterinary 

 medicine, where ergot was described 

 and the honeyed secretion given as a 

 characteristic marking of the early 

 stages of this poisonous fungus. In 

 looking up this subject I tind that 

 European writers often speak of this 

 nectar from ergot, and of insects col- 

 lecting it. Tlie ergotized grass, in 

 Quincy. Mich., was thronged with 

 bees, 'which are reported to have 

 secui-ed excellent honey from it. 



Ergot, as is well known, is a fungus 

 much used in medicine. Its use in- 

 duces spasmodic contraction of the 

 involuntary muscles. When eaten by 

 man, as it is wont to be in ergotized 

 rye, it produces inflammation of the 

 eyes, chills the exlreuiities— probably 

 by contraction of tlie asterioles— in- 

 duces swelling of the joints, which is 

 speedily followed by gangrene of the 

 limbs and bowels, "and death by con- 

 vulsions. As Bonjean and others 

 have shown, if the ergot of plants is 

 eaten by cattle and others of the 

 lower animals, disease and death are 

 produced, with much the same symp- 

 toms as mark ergot poisoning in man. 

 It is stated that there liave been many 

 epidemics in Europe caused by ergot 

 poisoning. 



We see, then, that in ergot, Michi- 

 gan has a most unwelcome visitor, 

 and that there is a very dark side to 

 this ergot picture ; but it is pleasant 

 to think that here as in most of !Na- 

 ture's products and life's experiences, 

 the sweet is liberally mixed in with 

 the bitter. I remark, in closing, that 

 in this fungus we have another 

 source of nectar not before noticed 

 in our American literature. 



Kor liic Aiiierlcsin Hf« Jimrnal. 



Continuous Passage-Ways in Hives. 



.1. E. I'OND, .111. 



1^ The Willamette Valley Bee- 

 Keepers' Association will hold its 

 second meeting at La Fayette, Ore- 

 gon, on the third Tuesday in June, 

 188-5. All who are interested are in- 

 vited to attend. 



E. J. IIadley, Sec. 



P. S. Harding, Fres. 



I notice that some of our ajiiarists 

 are endeavoring to establisli the claim 

 that bees will' not work as well in 

 sections, where they are placed 

 directly on the frames, as they do 

 when a bee-space is used between. 

 Tills has not ijeen my experience, and 

 I have given the matter a pretty fair 

 test during the last season. I will 

 confess that as one who learned his 

 bee-lore in the first place from Father 

 Langstroth, I was much prejudiced 

 against doing away with a bee-space, 

 and was more than incredulous in re- 

 gard to the same ; in tact I was so 

 prejudiced in favor of the bee-space 

 that it was with great difficulty that I 

 was persuaded to make any tests in 

 regard to it. 



However. I was presented with so 

 strong a case both theoretically and 

 practically as to the superiority of a 

 hive provided with continuous pas- 

 sage-ways, and the plan operating the 

 sections on it, that I was induced 

 early in the season to try such a hive. 

 I was so fortunate as to Jiave my colo- 

 nies all very strong in time to take 

 advantage of fruit bloom, and on its 

 first appearance, I gave sections to 3 

 colonies of as nearly as possible the 

 same size and strength, one of them 

 being placed in a hive provided with 

 continuous passage-ways, the others 

 being in Langstroth-Simplicities, with 

 an ordinary section-case. The result 

 was that the colony in the former liive 

 went at once into the sections, and 

 filled and capped nearly all of them 

 (30), while the bees in the other hives 

 did not work up into their sections till 

 apple bloom had almost entirely 

 passed away- 



This I did not look upon as a full 

 test, although strongly in favor of the 

 continnoiis-passage-way method ; con- 

 sequently I was not satisfied, but on 

 the appearance of white clover, I 

 changed the colony in the hive pro- 

 vided with continuous passage-ways 

 with one of the others above men- 

 tioned, and strange to say, the evi- 

 dence was so strong that I was con- 

 vinced ; the colony which did not work 

 well in sections in the Langstroth- 

 Simplicity liive with i4-in<''' bee- 

 space, went at once into the sections 

 upon being placed in tlie hive pro- 

 vided with continuous passage-ways ; 

 while the other 2 colonies, one of 

 them being the one which was taken 

 from the hive with continuous pas- 

 sage-ways, spent some four or five 

 days before they did anything in their 

 sections. 



I consider the tests which I have 

 described, fairly conclusive ; and so 

 much so are they to me, that I should 

 use the continuous passage-ways if I 

 were working for surpluscomb honey. 

 Xo separators were used, yet not a 

 section did I find which could not be 

 glassed ; and so little propolis was 

 placed on them, that it was hardly 

 appreciable. I presume if I had a 

 hive and section diflerent in principle 

 from the one of which I am now 

 writing, which I was offering for sale, 



and urging as the best to be found, I 

 should not make the above statement; 

 but such is not the case. I have no 

 interest whatever in the sales of any 

 hive or supplies of any kind ; but my 

 belief is, liowever,that the continuous- 

 passage-way idea is the correct one 

 in producing comb honey in sections, 

 and that the continuous passage-way 

 will, ere long, be recognized as the 

 best, and firmly established as one of 

 the great recent improvements. 



It stands to reason as a matter of 

 theory, that our bees will use an un- 

 obstructed path more freely than 

 they will one which contains various 

 obstacles ; when practice is found to 

 be just what theory indicates, a case 

 is made out, and in my experience 

 practice proves just what the theory 

 indicated. 



I had no trouble at all with the 

 queen occupying the sections ; for the 

 reason, I suppose, that she had plenty 

 of room below, and the bees filled the 

 sections so quickly that she had no 

 chance to get into them, even had she 

 been so disposed. 



1 have written the above in the in- 

 terest of apiculture, for 1 believe it a 

 duty which we all owe each other to 

 make such tests as we can conven- 

 iently, and give the results, whatever 

 they may be, for public use. By this 

 means the public will be benefitted, 

 either in one way or the other, as all 

 the experiences of the fraternity when 

 collated become a great chart, where- 

 by we may learn where the deep 

 water lies, and also where the shoals 

 and quicksands may be found. 



Foxboro,o+ Mass. 



■ tDe American 13ee Journal. 



Large Combs to Prevent Swarms. 



O. M. DOOLITTLE. 



Some bee-keepers seem to think 

 that large frames of comb used in a 

 hive have a tendency to prevent nat- 

 ural swarming, and for this reason 

 advise resorting to the use of such 

 combs by all "those who desire no 

 swarms ; but after years of careful 

 experiment, I fail to find that the size 

 of the frame has anything to do with 

 swarming, unless, perchance, some 

 few weak colonies, in the spring, are 

 so slow building up on these large 

 frames, that the lioney season is past 

 before they get strong enough to 

 swarm. As such weak colonies are 

 of little value to the apiarist in any 

 event, it has little bearing on the sub- 

 ject one way or the other. 



After working several different 

 styles of frames, from the Quinby 

 down to the Gallup, I decided that 

 the Gallup frame gave me all of the 

 advantages which the larger frames 

 did. and some not possessed by them. 

 For tills reason I decided on the Gal- 

 lup frame as the best frame in use, 

 •and after years of experience with it, 

 I still hold tothe sameopinion. While 

 using the larger style of frames, I ex- 

 perimented relative to the effect 

 which each kind had on natural 

 swarming, and became'convinced that 

 if the same number of square inches 

 of comb were given each colony, that 



